In his 20-year NBA career, Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant was known to play through injuries, gutting out entire games with broken fingers and sprained ankles. But an Achilles tear is not something he could play through, and it cost Bryant an entire season during the back end of his career.
Because this was later in Bryant's career, he had already logged plenty of time on the court. His body was already exhibiting signs of wear and tear due to the tens of thousands of minutes. Unfortunately for Laker fans, Andy Kamenetzky of The Athletic pointed out that their recently acquired superstar in LeBron James has already surpassed Bryant's career minute total.
“And if I may offer a morbid comparison, when Kobe Bryant tore his Achilles, he had logged 45,390 regular-season minutes, plus another 8,641 in the postseason, for a grand total of 54,031 minutes of NBA run. Guess who’s lapped that sum by 316 minutes.”
It's worth mentioning that just because James has surpassed Bryant's career minutes total at this stage of his career isn't implying that an injury could be coming. Rather, it's a notice of the Lakers organization and their training staff that they should do everything in their power to limit James' minutes and take great care of his body. James is known for his insane workout regiments and he makes sure to be in near-perfect shape during the season.
Last season, James accomplished a personal goal of his to play all 82 games, doing so in year 15. He may have had the best year of his career taking everything into account, averaging 27.5 points, 8.6 rebounds, 9.1 assists, 1.4 steals, 0.9 blocks, and 1.8 three-pointers per game on 54.2 percent shooting from the field and 36.7 percent from beyond the arc.
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